Editorֱs Note: This is the 573rd in a series of articles recalling Huntington people and places.
Bob Bowen, longtime sports director at WSAZ television in Huntington, was surely the most famous graduate of Minford (Ohio) High School. On the air, he never missed an opportunity to plug the tiny schoolֱs sports team, which he christened the ֱMighty Minford Falcons.ֱ
Born in 1930, Bowen graduated from Minford High in 1949. After high school, he served in the U.S. Air Force for three and a half years. Part of that time he spent as a radar operator in Alaska.
Honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1952, he enrolled as a student at The Ohio State University. He graduated from OSU in 1956 with a bachelorֱs of arts degree in radio and television.
In 1956, he was hired as a disc jockey at WTNS in Coshocton, Ohio. He appeared in the mornings on ֱLetֱs Get Together With Recordsֱ and in the evenings on the ֱHillbilly Hoedownֱ show.
In 1956, Bowen and his family moved to Huntington when he was hired as an announcer at WSAZ Radio. He quickly transitioned to television, becoming the stationֱs sports director in 1967, a post he held until he retired in 1990.
Without exception, any time Minford was part of the dayֱs sports news, Bowen always identified them as the ֱMighty Minford Falcons.ֱ Ultimately the school included the word ֱMightyֱ in its official coat of arms.
Bowen was living in Versailles, Kentucky, when he died in 2000. He was survived by his wife, Cynthia Sue Linet Bowen, and their three daughters, Cynthia Lee Kiek, Loren Lee Snape and Linda Lee Paluch. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Huntington.
